Best Balance Transfers Discussion Area

patricklt wrote: »

Having never moved to take advantage of an interest free credit card balance transfer before - and having all but arranged a low interest loan to pay off about £10K on my current credit card (in 4 years and with a monthly payment similar to what I already pay on my card) I thought I'd try MSE's advice. A Virgin Credit card was recommended with a high likelihood of being accepted and, subsequently, I applied for this. 3 weeks later I received my first communication - approved! But for £500 credit only. That's less than my husband, who only recently completed a degree and remains unemployed, was recently offered for his first card! Plus the mere process of making this application appears to have dropped my credit score (with Experian) by 50 points. I earn over £50K pa, have only one other loan (which will have its final £180 paid off in 2 months), have never defaulted on a payment and have a good excess of income over expenditure each month. Virgin have said that I can 'appeal' their credit limit but I've just told them to cancel this - it's been a complete waste of my time. Moral of the story - don't believe everything you read on MSE. I used their advice cautiously and with open and honest intent but, ultimately, it proved poor advice. Would obviously appreciate any help as to where I may have gone wrong!

It really would have been better to have started a new thread instead of deleting the post from the new thread that you created and adding it on page 246 of an existing thread.
As to the question of where have you gone wrong ...
It is my understanding that you currently have an income in excess of £50Kpa. You currently possess only one credit card with an interest beating balance of 10K which you have been repaying now for 4 years, making a monthly (minimum?) payment of about the same as the repayments would be on a 10K loan.
Although not stated, I assume that this credit card is being used more or less at it's limit. What is the credit limit on this card?
You say that you have a good excess of income over expenditure every month.
So why have you never repaid more to this card? What is happening to this 'good excess' each month?
Using a credit card up to it's limit shows financial stress. Having an interest bearing balance on a credit card and making minimum or near to minimum payments each month shows that you can't afford to pay any more. (It would be assumed that as the interest rate on the card would be far far higher than you could be earning in interest on the money, you would repay more to the card if you could to reduce interest).
Under these circumstances, Virgin would assume that you can't afford to pay any more than you are already paying and, if the balance on the card has been increasing in recent months, that even that is unaffordable.
Did you actually use the eligibility checker on the Virgin Money site or rely on a third party eligibility checker? Either way, the eligibility checker was correct. Virgin took a chance on you and you got the card. Nothing to complain about there. You got the card. The MSN eligibility checker has not let you down.
Did you honestly imagine that you would be given a card with a credit limit in excess of 10K to balance transfer all of this debt? If you did you are living in cloud cuckoo land. I admit that £500 is a bit low but in all likelihood Virgin would have increased the limit if you had demonstrated good account management on their card over the next several months. Instead you declined the card. So now you are back to square one but with a hard search on your credit files.
MSN have not given you any bad advice. They have given you good advice.
Why did you pay interest on this balance for 4 years before deciding to get a 0% card? Was there something on your credit files preventing this?
A final piece of good advice. Don't make any further applications until your other loan is fully repaid and showing as settled on your credit files.